Sunday, September 06, 2009

We are preempting the weekly Summer ratings for today because final numbers for Wednesday and Thursday were not available to us yet, so we bring you a special edition of the blog DVD reviews on this special Labor Day weekend!Today we take a look at Lionsgate's Season 8 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Ninja Turtles is of course the hit animated series that caused kids and teens to go crazy for in the late '80s and early '90s. See my Blog DVD Review of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Complete Season 8:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Complete Season 8 (Lionsgate, $14.98) brings all 8 episodes from the series' eighth season on DVD. Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Splinter, April are all back to battle Shredder, Krang and other villains! It's a heart-pounding, pizza-munching, right-outta-the-sewer ninja action on this eighth season that even has a new theme song!

Starting with season four we started getting season releases. Season 4 set had 39 episodes and season 5 had 18 episodes. Season six had a total of 16 episodes on its set. And season seven had 27 episodes in four collectible "slices." Prior to that we were getting volume releases. Here is a recap: Volume 6 had the last 11 episodes from season three, plus the first episode of season four. The third season had a total of 47 episodes, so they decided to split up that season into volumes, so volumes 3, 4, 5, and 6 covered season three. For season 2 there were just 13 episodes, so Lionsgate released that for volume two...so yes, technically the first two volumes were season sets. Season one had only 5 episodes, so that was on Volume 1, with four bonus episodes from season ten actually. So do you have all of these? Hope you do dudes!

The packaging has an outer box that holds a keepcase inside. It is very simple since it is a one-disc set that has just eight episodes. The cover art has the Turtles in battle mode with Leonardo featured and Michaelangelo, Donatello and Raphael in the background. The color scheme is blue. The show logo is on the top, with "The Complete Season 8" logo on the bottom right and the "produced by Fred Wolf Films" on the bottom. The back of the box has info on the series and set, with a yellow box listing all eight episode titles. Radical! We also have three small episodic photos, along with a nice shot of Leonardo. The cover and back of the case is exactly the same as the outer box. When we open the case, we have the disc on the right panel. There is no artwork or anything on the panels itself, it is just a plain black background. The disc art has Leonardo (same as the cover art), with a blue background. Bodacious!

The menu screen is similar to season six. First, we get autotrailers before the main menu appears with trailers for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men Wolverine, Super Capers movie, and more. Then after that is done, we come to the main menu screen. The theme song is playing in the background, and it does loop, and the photo is similar to the box art with each turtle. The theme song is actually the more popular older theme song rather than the new theme song that starts this season. The menu options are: Play All Episodes, Episode Selection, Trailers. Episode Selection takes us to a submenu with episode #, title, and a screenshot from the episode. Gnarly!

The video is on par with the other volumes, with dust and debris here and there and on par with previous recent seasons. The audio is also on par with the previous releases, not bad...and listenable. It's not remastered, but this is the best we have and it beats our taped VHS versions. The episodes are around 23:30. We get 5 chapter stops per episode again. Sensei Master Splinter likes!

Seasons four and five had extras, but then season six had absolutely nothing! Then for the 25th anniversary set, we had a lot of extras for season seven. We get nada here. This is the point in time when the Turtles episodes start getting a bit weird, so I guess we should not expect any more extras from here on out. Look out for the "Red Sky" in each episode!

I still urge fans to buy this set even though there are no special features. There are only eight episodes, so you could finish this set in a day and if you have all seven seasons, then you need this to continue your collection. Only Seasons 9 and 10 remain to be released. Seasons eight through ten have 8 episodes each, so expect one-disc sets from here on out, just like this season eight set. Four of the eight episodes of season ten was released on the Volume 1 DVD, the very first DVD...but I'm sure they will release all eight of those will be released when that set comes out.Anyway, the tone of the show became darker, the art style changed significantly...but it's still our Turtles and you need to get this set dudes! Cowabunga!

Younger - "Girls on the Side" (TV Land, 10:00PM ET/PT)
Liza is distressed when she meets Caitlin’s middle-aged boyfriend. Diana refuses to back down from a challenge. Josh rebrands.

Teachers - "Hot Deadly Dad" (TV Land, 10:34PM ET/PT)
Ms. Snap convinces Ms. Bennigan that Hot Dad is a serial killer who is still at large in Chicago. Ms. Watson attempts to teach her “dirtbag” student to be upper class, while Ms. Cannon wears leggings that leave little to the imagination.